Friday, February 7, 2014

6 Ways to Be More Resilient During Tough Times

Examples of resilience are all around us. Athletes
who lost limbs but went on to compete again.

Survivors of 9/11 who
rebuilt from the rubble. Holocaust victims who are living out long,
fulfilling lives.

Look to your own community for inspiration. You likely
know someone who once dealt with something terrible but has found joy
again.

In fact, researchers have found that resilience in the face of
adversity is more common than uncommon.

So, what does it mean to be resilient?

"Resilience is
a measurement of one's capacity to recover fully from an adversity,""
says Charles Figley, PhD, director of the Tulane Traumatology Institute
in New Orleans, where he studies traumatic stress resilience.

"It's like
pressing a balloon tightly and examining how completely the balloon
assumes its original position." Psychologists say that resilience can be
learned - it's not something we either have or don't have.

So if times
are tough right now, you can take steps to strengthen your resilience.
Even if you're not struggling at the moment, adopting these habits now
can help you down the road when life throws you a curveball.

Expect Things to Get Better

If you fall into a rough patch, you may not feel
happy the next day. Or even the next week. But eventually, with time,
light will begin to peek back into your life.

If you want to work on
bouncing back, you must expect that good things will happen, says
Phyllis Zilkha, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Manhattan.

"If you're
expecting only bad things to happen, how resilient can you be? Why push
on? What's the difference?" Optimism, Zilkha says, is the single
biggest factor in recovering from adversity. It's what makes some of us
seek out solutions to our troubles instead of pulling the covers over
our heads.

Don't Ignore Your Calls and Emails

There's no shortage of reasons why having a support
system helps us get through tough times. Friends and loved ones can
provide an invaluable distraction from our negative thoughts.

When we're
feeling isolated, they remind us that we're attached to a group - and
that we're important to someone.

They can also provide a fresh
perspective: "If they're not in the middle of the grief or the difficult
period, people outside it can see a broader picture and say, ‘Yes,
what's going on now is terrible, but look at this possible positive
outcome,'" Zilkha says.

"Social support is among the ‘protective
factors' that increase our odds of having high resilience when faced
with daunting adversity," Figley adds. "It enables processing of the
experience to focus on solutions."

Go On a Mind Vacation

Although it's natural for your mind to turn over
events in your head, getting a break from negative thoughts can be
restorative and healing, and keeping yourself busy can give you some
much-needed distance from your troubles.

Work is a time-honored way of
recovering from pain - you're getting paid to focus and produce, so you
won't be able to think about your problems as much. Or volunteer, which
shifts your focus from yourself to others and could even help you see
your troubles in a new light.

One study at Vanderbilt University found
that volunteering reduces depression and enhances happiness, life
satisfaction, self-esteem, physical health and our sense of control over
our lives.

Try spending some time engaged in a hobby that you can lose
yourself in. These moments when you're not focused on your pain or loss
can create an opportunity for joy to sprout again.

Tickle Your Funny Bone

When Figley looked at what makes emergency first
responders resilient to traumatic stress, humor emerged as one of the
most important protective factors.

Humor dampens down our natural
fight-or-flight reaction to negative events and lowers our stress
hormones. It also shifts our perception of a difficult situation from an
emergency to a less distressing issue, so we can calm down, look at it
from different angles and cope with it better.

"When you feel that you
have done the best you can in addressing questions like ‘Why did this
happen to me?', take a break and experience something that makes you
laugh," Figley says. It will not only help you feel better in the
moment, but allow you to adapt to the reality you're faced with.

Count Your Blessings

Feeling grateful - something we can actively work
on - improves our overall wellbeing and helps us cope with our troubles.

In one study, people who created a list of five things they were
grateful for over the past week felt better about their lives as a whole
and were more optimistic about their expectations for the upcoming week
than those who recorded hassles from the past week.

The
happiness-boosting benefits of thankfulness even helped people living
with a difficult health condition. Study participants with a
neuromuscular disease felt better about their lives and more connected
to other people after they wrote a gratitude list than those who didn't
count their blessings.

Finally, Remember That This, Too, Shall Pass

Try reminding yourself of this when you're feeling
low. Because it's true! "Everything in life has a beginning and end,"
Zilkha says. These endings may not be the best outcomes you can imagine,
but they can bring some relief.

For example, if you've gotten a serious
diagnosis, you'll probably feel panicked and distraught. That feeling
will subside a bit when you learn about treatments and start working
toward getting better. If you're going through a divorce, you won't miss
your ex as keenly a year or two down the line.

"When something bad is
happening, it's like being in the middle of the ocean," Zilkha says.
"When you're there you think it just goes on forever, but it doesn't.
I'm no believer that everything will turn out wonderful, but things can be better than they are now."